At Loose Ends
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: Rose meets a strange old man with a cricket bat. 'Why is it that time travel and trouble seem to be exactly the same thing? ' Rose thought frantically, eyes darting around the hallway, looking for any escape.


Title: At Loose Ends

Rating: General

Summary: Rose meets a strange old man with a cricket bat.  
Disclaimer: I claim no rights whatsoever to any of this.

Notes: First Doctor Who fic I ever wrote...

(-)

_Why is it that time travel and trouble seem to be exactly the same thing_? Rose thought frantically, eyes darting around the hallway, looking for any escape. Above-- no ceiling panels in this century. And she didn't stand much chance of getting through the floor.

"Um..." she tried, backing away from the hulking figure. "D'you want to come over for tea by any chance? I know this bloke, best tea in space and time, I promise..."

The giant humanoid kept stalking toward her, the feral gleam in its eyes not dimming one bit.

"I knew I shouldn't have let him talk me into this," Rose muttered, even though he hadn't talked her into anything and it was probably dangerous to his psyche to even think it. "Oh, just break into his office, steal the red thingy, bring it back, everything's hunky-dory! 'Cept somehow it escaped our notice that he works in an _institution_. You aren't listening to me at all, are you?"

He wasn't, and she was running out of hallway very quickly.

"Er, what're you in for?" she tried. "Schitzophrenia--er-- can't think of any other mental illnesses at the moment--"

A growl.

"Wonderful, now I'm annoying it, _great_ plan, Rose," she muttered.

Her hand behind her hit something flat and cool and smooth, and possibly wallpapered, if wallpaper existed on this planet. It certainly _felt_ like wallpaper, but _it was three feet away from her and its breath was warm and smelled rather like hot dogs and those teeth it was baring looked very very sharp_--

"Couldn't we-- be friends?" she tried one last time. "Complain about doctors? You know?"

Those teeth were very very long and sharp and _glinting_, that's how sharp they were, and it/he was _growling_ and she hadn't had her shots on this planet but she was pretty sure that wasn't going to matter very much if she didn't find some way out of this--

A heavy, sick-sounding _thwack_--

Rose pressed herself even closer to the wall as the killer-gleaming eyes flickered, and twitched about, and dimmed, and the giant madman fell to the floor.

She'd been doing this for far too long not to know that this could be an even worse sign. Her eyes flicked over to the space behind where the giant had been, frantically trying to focus, because it could be damnably hard to tell the difference between a savior and a threat--

--if there _was_ a difference--

--but there was nothing there.

Someone coughed politely; she jumped and looked frantically around again. This time she found her savior, about a meter below where she'd been looking.

It was an old man. A somewhat short old man, in a black suit, with a black velvet cape, and a bowler hat. And--

"That couldn't possibly be--" she said, involuntarily. "A _cricket bat_?"

"Yes, I find it's wonderfully satisfying," said the man, waving it around a little. "I tried sticks, and a baseball bat, and a blaster, and a few other things you've never heard of, but I decided to stick with this in the end. Something about the heft of it, and the flat end makes such a delightful impact--"

"Who are you?" Rose asked.

"Good question," said the old man, abruptly somber. "I wonder if I could've ever answered it?"

It was strange, how his mood changed so suddenly and he went from a teenager to the oldest man in the universe in--

"No," Rose breathed. "It couldn't be."

"Hmm?" The man blinked up at her.

"You're _far_ too short," she said, shaking her head.

"Ah. Well, that's a long story. You'll hear it soon enough, I'm sure. But-- yes."

"Yes," Rose repeated. "Yes what?"

"Yes, I am the Doctor."

"Oh." Rose blinked. "How did you get so short?"

The Doctor sighed. "Let's just put it down to a quirk of fate and not tear the time-space continuum into little pieces of confetti, shall we?"

"Okay," Rose said instantly. "No tearing the time-space continuum. Got it. Perfect agreement with you there." She paused. "But aren't you already doing that by being here?"

He shook his head. "No. In fact, I'm just tying up some loose ends."

"What?"

He sighed just a little. "I'm only going back to places I remember that I must have been."

"...Should I maybe just ignore that until it makes sense?"

"Probably a good idea, yeah."

"Right." She paused. "So you came back in time... to beat the crap out of people with a cricket bat."

"It's very cathartic," the Doctor said serenely. "After you-probably-shouldn't-know-how-many years mucking about in time and space, it's wonderfully... _straightforward_."

"Except for the part about traveling through time."

He shrugged. "Well... _comparatively_ straightforward."

The insane man on the floor stirred slightly; Rose sqeaked and quickly jumped over the body.

"But you have someplace to be." The Doctor smiled.

"But-- so I shouldn't tell him about--?" Rose asked, looking nervously at the giant on the floor.

"No, no, no, you have to tell him _something_, or else I won't know to come back here! Just tell him an old man saved you by hitting him with a cricket bat. Say I ran off. Couldn't be simpler."

"Shouldn't I... leave out the cricket bat part?"

"No, no, leave that _in_."

"But won't it be a bit-- _suspicious_?"

"No, no," the Doctor explained. "I'm a silly young fool. I'll just assume you're talking about some alien thing that _looks_ like a cricket bat. It will certainly be a strange story, but we'll have much bigger problems, won't we? You can safely assume I'll forget about it until the day I realize I'm an old man with a cricket bat. Now _go_! This thing _is_ on a timer!"

"Oh-- right!" Rose stumbled a bit-- quite understandable, she thought-- and hurried down the corridor. "Goodbye!"

"Goodbye, Rose Tyler!" the Doctor called back. "See you in twenty minutes!"

Rose shook her head to clear it. Time travel was _weird_.

(-)

Two guards, three ravines, and twenty-one minutes later, Rose ran into the Doctor again.

Literally. He was wearing black, and it was a dark night.

"Rose? God! What _took_ you so long?!" He grabbed her hand and dragged her inside. "We have to get out of here! They're closing in--"

"It was a bloody _sanitarium_, had a bit of _security_, and thanks for warning me, by the way--"

"But you got it?"

She smiled and pulled it out of her pocket. "'Course I got it," she said, with a smug grin.

"Heh. I knew you would." He grabbed it and set to work at the TARDIS console. "It's got to be done in the Great Hall. Stupid little battery-- this thing's got no range at all."

"Isn't the Great Hall the one where all the armed guards were stationed?" Rose hazarded, with a sinking feeling. After all, it was a pretty safe bet.

"Where else?"

"Lovely. I assume you have a brilliant plan?"

"Give me five minutes."

She sighed.

All in all, it was three explosions, two time-jumps, and seven hours later that he finally got around to asking the question again.

"It was a sanitarium?" he asked, and it had been so long since it happened that she couldn't remember what he was talking about.

"What-- oh! Yes. Turns out he was a doctor of _psychology_."

"Ah. Sorry."

"Not your fault. Though I admit, if you'd asked me when I was being attacked by the giant wolf-man, I might've reacted a _little_ bit differently."

"One of them _attacked_ you?" the Doctor exclaimed, appalled. "How'd you escape _that_ one?"

"Some old guy hit it over the head with a cricket bat," Rose replied, casually.

"A cricket bat?" the Doctor asked, skeptical.

Rose shrugged. "That's what it looked like to me."

"Ah." The Doctor nodded in understanding. "I'm sure it did."

Rose shoved down a feeling of annoyed insult. After all, this was what she _wanted_ him to think...

Even if it involved him easily assuming she was an uncultured ape...

"Did he say anything?" the Doctor asked.

Rose shrugged. "Not much. I was kind of in a hurry."

"You think he was another patient?"

Rose frowned. "He seemed kind of short... but then again, he was pretty old, so..."

"Well-- did he seem crazy?"

Rose looked at him. "The barmiest old codger I've ever met," she said, with perfect sincerity.

Rather too _much_ sincerity. The Doctor looked at her suspiciously for a moment-- but shook his head and dismissed it altogether.

_Until someday he remembers my rather suspicious comment and comes back here with a cricket bat._

"So, where to next?" the Doctor said brightly. "This'll be quite a lovely planet in a couple hundred years."

She shook her head, bemused. "Time travel is _weird_," she said.

And if he didn't quite realize what she was referring to, that was okay. He would eventually-- and there were places to go, and planets to save, and explosions to run away from.

The loose ends would be tied up later.

(-)


End file.
